VOL.100,NO.40 (USPS 650-640)
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
FRIDAY OCT.20,1989
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
NEWS:864-4810
Marchers protest rape, abuse
'Take Back the Night' demands end of violence against women
By Stacy Smith Kansan staff writer
Adrian McConnell, 8, wore a sage on his back that read, "I am a boy, but I'm not violent. Violence is a choice, not a gender."
accenture marred through Lawrence last night with his mother, Becky McConnell-Cunningham, Lawrence resident, at the "Take Back the Night" march to protest violence against women and children.
"I guess to me it means recoom from abuse in my past," McConnell-Cunningham said. "I marched last year and the year before, too."
More than 150 students, professors and Lawrence residents attended the march, which started at the Katy Academy and ended at the South Park gazeebo.
"A Woman's Body is not a man's Property," "Stop Rape," and "Sisterhood is Powerful" were some of the messages painted on signs that protesters carried while they chanted "Women unite. Take back the night."
At the South Park, gazezo, women who were survivors of rape and physical abuse spoke of their experiences. A candlelight vigil was held after the speeches to remember those who had suffered from violence and to celebrate those who had survived.
The first speaker, who was introduced only as Kirsten, spoke of her rape experience and gave words of encouragement to other rape survivors.
"I want to set other women in the audience free," she said. "It's not your fault. You're not responsible."
Laura Alexander, organizer of the "Take Back the Night" committee, said the march, one of several across the country, was designed to heighten community awareness about violence against women also providing support for women in cases of abuse. She said this was the fifth year the march had crossed Lawrence.
"The primary goal is to empower women," she said. "The night has traditionally been a time when women are afraid, so that's what we're doing — we're taking back the night."
The committee's signs for the march spelled "women" with a shrug of an "e," and many marchers also used that varied spelling.
"A lot of women feel that language is really powerful and taking out the "men" in the word "women" empowers women, so we have our own identity from men," Alexander said.
Rebecca Largen, Laurel Fork, Va., graduate student, listens to a rape survivor's experiences. Andrew Van.
Series lessens shock of Bay area quake
The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Three strong afterschocks rattled Northern California yesterday, and rescues who found fewer cars than feared under a collapsed freeway said the World Series may have reduced the rush-hour traffic.
"Maybe we got lucky because of the game," Oakland police Sgt. Bob Crawford said. "Normally at 5 o'clock in the afternoon this area would be bumper-to-bumper. Maybe the World Series saved our lives."
Power and commuters returned to much of downtown San Francisco as the city tried to recover and regroup following Tuesday's earthquake, which claimed an estimated 270 lives and $2 billion in damage.
At the 1/4-inch stretch of the collapsed double-deck Interstate 880, the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland, workers cut holes in concrete and used cranes to pull out cnap-fate crack. Rescuers reported finding the cars as far apart as 60 feet, rather than bumper-to-bumper as had been feared, Assistant Fire Chief Al Sigwart said.
A transportation department spokesman said a large marine barge crane was being moved into place to lift the fallen upper deck slab of the bridge, which might be reopened in three weeks.
Many people left work early to watch the third game of the World Series, scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m., and 60,000 people already were across the bay in San Francisco at
Candlestick Park when the quake struck at 5:04 p.m.
pth.
The World Series will resume Tuesday at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson said yesterday that only 85 people were officially reported missing.
Yesterday morning, three after-shocks struck south of San Francisco. The first, measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale of ground motion, hit at 3:15 a.m. and was centered near Watsonville, about eight miles from the epicenter of Tuesday's 6.9 quake, according to the state Office of Emergency Service. Two other after-shocks measured 4.5.
"No one is really sleeping around here," Watsonville resident John Murphy said.
Fifty-six people were treated at a Watsonville community clinic, mostly for bruises and frazzled nerves, city spokeswoman Lorraine Washington said. About 150 people were evacuated from a National Guard Armory shelter after a natural gas leak.
As of early yesterday, more than 1,400 aftershocks had been recorded. The strongest, 5.2 on the Richter scale, struck within 40 minutes of the initial jolt, according the U.S. Geological Survey.
Before dawn yesterday, thousands of alarms were set off across the Financial District heralded the restoration of power to downtown buildings.
Inflation rate bolsters stocks with modest rise
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Consumer prices rose an unexpectedly modest 0.2 percent in September, the government reported yesterday, calming frazzled financial markets, which took the report as an indication that the Federal Reserve Board had room to lower interest rates.
Inflation, which had been raging at a 6.7 percent annual rate from January through May, abated to a 4.4 percent rate for the first nine months of the year, the same as in 1988 and 1987 and lower than the Bush administration's 1989 inflation projection of 5 percent.
Michael Boskin, chief economic adviser at the White House, called the report "good economic news."
The seasonally adjusted increase in the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index comes after no gain at all
in August and similarly modest 0.2 percent rise in July and June.
Although private economists said inflation was likely to pick up in the fourth quarter, jittery stock and bond markets rallied on yesterday's news, interpreting it as a sign the Federal Reserve likely would nudge interest rates lower.
By midafternoon, the Dow Jones industrial average had risen more than 40 points.
Because of the stock market turnover set off by the Friday the 13th nosedive, the Fed has eased a key interest rate from about 9 percent to 8.75 percent. Analysts predicted another quarter-point decline soon in the rate charged between banks for overnight loans.
"Under these circumstances, there is no question that interest rates will fall," said economist William K. MacReynolds of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Senate, 51-48, douses flag-burning legislation
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Senate yesterday defeated a proposed constitutional amendment to ban burning and desecration of the U.S. flag, dealing a sharp rebuff to President Bush on an issue he had put in the spotlight.
Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine said as the Senate defeated the amendment, "We do not serve our national tradition by forcing Americans to make a false and unnecessary choice between the flag and the Constitution."
However, Senate Minority leader Bob Dole said, "I think the flag should be flown at half-staff after this vote."
The White House said Bush was disappointed by the Senate's action.
The proposal won a slight majority, 51-48, but that was 15 votes short of two-thirds of senators present and voting that was needed for approval.
Democrats led the opposition, but the vote was hardly along strict party lines. Thirty-three Republicans and 18 Democrats voted for the measure, while 11 Republicans and 37 Democrats opposed it.
Congress gave final passage last week to a bill to ban flag burning by simple statute.
Arguing broke out between the parties even after the vote. Democrats charged that Bush and GOP National Chairman Lee Atwater had pushed
the amendment to put pressure on them.
But Sen, Arlen Specter, R-Pa., noted that 18 Democrats had supported the measure.
The argument that the issue could be a potent election weapon against senators who opposed the amendment appeared to lose steam this week.
Mitchell told reporters yesterday morning before the vote that the outcome, by then sure, was due to be "sound judgment of the American people." Other lawmakers said most Americans apparently are not overly interested in the proposed amendment.
The measure would have authorized state and federal governments to ban burning and desecration of the flag. Critics said the danger to the flag was not as great as the danger to the Bill of Rights.
"We face no sudden or controllable burst of flag destruction. We face no massive alienation by our people from the symbols and traditions of our nation. Yet we are being asked to believe that the flag which neither Hitler nor Stalin could defeat is now threatened by a single misguided person who most Americans never heard of and don't care about," Mitchell said.
In a final appeal on behalf of the measure Dole took the Senate floor to invoke the history of the flag from Iwo Jima to the moon landing.
Movie depicts Palestinian plight
By Cory S. Anderson
The plight of Palestinians living on the West Bank of the Jordan River was brought to the University of Kansas last night when the movie "Days of Rage" was shown at the Kansas Union.
Kansan staff writer
The movie, sponsored by the American Friends of Palestine, showed the struggle for an independent homeland by Palestinian living in the Israeli occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza strip. About 30 people attended.
Muhmoud Abu-Ali, spokesman for the American Friends of Palestine, said that the movie was the first to show the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians from a Palestinian point of view.
"It's the first time the Palestinians are able to speak their feelings," he said.
The movie was made in summer 1888 and was shown on public television after much debate about whether it had been properly financed, the All said.
The focus of the movie is the Intifada, which is the name given to the Palestinian uprising that began in December 1987. The movie shows, through actual footage, the pitched battles between Israeli soldiers and young Palestinians. The soldiers are armed with tear gas and rubber bullets, the Palestinians with rocks.
The film also shows some of the peaceful strategies being used by the leaders of the uprising, such as general strikes by Palestinian workers and merchants and economic boycotts of Israeli goods.
The conflict dates back to 1987 when Israel first occupied the territory. Now, many Palestinians are forced to live in refugee camps, are subject to Israeli imposed curfews and must
carry identification cards with them at all times or be subject to arrest, according to the movie. One viewer compared the situation to South Africa's system of apartheid.
"It is unbelievable to think this is being done in the 20th century by a country that claims democracy," said Mohammad Noor, Saudi Arabian graduate student.
Beth Abu-Ali, secretary and treasurer for the American Friends of Palestine, said that the reason for showing the film was to educate people and give them a different view of the conflict. Much of the original opposition to the film may not have been because of improper financing, she said, but because of the perspective from which the film is made.
One of the things that disturbed Noor about the film was the footage of children being beaten by Israeli soldiers.
Students strive for Middle East dialogue at KU
By Mark McHugn Special to the Kansan
Although relations between Palestinians and Jews are stifled in the Middle East, KU students from that region are trying to break communication barriers at the University of Kansas.
masoud.
"I know some Jews on campus, and we talk together. We say at least 'hil' to each other," said Sadeq Masoud, president of the General Union of Palestinian Students.
Masoud said that compromise was the answer to the crisis between Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East and in the United States.
"Moderation is the key to negotiate in the
future," he said. "We are always looking for a fair solution to this issue. Without compromise, the future will be the new generation."
Jen Marks, president of Hililel, a KU Jewish student organization, said that she had noticed an improvement in relations between the two campus groups.
"We're not going to solve all the problems, but at least we can talk to each other," she said.
"It was a really good thing." Marks said. "If you could get more dialogue, the better. That
Representatives from the Islamic, Jewish and Christian faiths spoke Monday in an open forum at Templin Hall to inform students about those faiths.
way people won't be misinformed."
Marks said Hillel formed a group called the Israel Committee to inform people of the events leading up to the Middle Eastern crisis and the situation there. Another objective of the committee is to open lines of communications with Palestinian students.
Masoud said that radicalism within both groups hindered dialogue development.
"I cannot agree with the radicals or me group," he said. "As a moderate person, I have to compromise. It's like you can't have it all, and they can't have it all. They have some radicals, too."